Utah Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission

September 21, 2014

Our Sisters!!!

It was the final week for the Curtis’ so on Tuesday we said goodbye to them and the five sisters going home.  The Bradshaw’s have stepped up and are doing a great job with their new assignments.  We will enjoy working with them for the next month.  Also on Wednesday sixteen new sisters entered the mission including those from South Africa, India and Pakistan….quite the mix of countries.

It is a wonderful surprise for us to be teaching Tressa again.  She is anxious to be baptized and asked Taggart to baptize her.  I think I mentioned earlier that we had hopes that she would be baptized before we left the mission and hooray it is going to happen.  Both she and Ron (her new husband) are engaged in the repentance process and are committed to going to church and living the commandments.  We begin teaching her again next week and look forward to it tremendously.  As for Diane, we have very little time left to have discussions with her.  As I always mention, she believes but questions everything.  If she can’t have faith in certain principles then she will be questioning forever.

As usual we have had many hospitality tours where we have had a few twelve hour days.  The hours are numbered for these tours though and we will miss visiting with the people who come from around the globe.   However, we will not miss the long hours and sore feet.

Today we had the special opportunity to go via satellite to the Ogden Temple dedication.  All the sisters were able to attend one of the three sessions in the Conference Center Little Theatre.  President Monson presided in our session along with President Eyring.  It was a very spiritual meeting and it brought excitement to us about this new temple…..our temple!  We are committed to going at least twice a month and doing work for our own ancestors.  President and Sister Poulsen gave us some special handkerchiefs that had the Ogden Temple appliqued on it.  We were grateful for that gift and those handkerchiefs will hold a very special memory for us.

The sisters have been so kind to us.  As we approach the end of our mission, we are getting a lot more hugs and pleads to not go home.  We will miss them so much and the interactions and special miracles they share with us on a daily basis.  This is probably the thing we will miss the most our beautiful and inspirational sister missionaries.

Utah Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission

September 14, 2014

Our Gathering in the Jade Room

We didn’t have a complete P-Day this week because we had a lovely dinner in the Jade Room at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building on Monday evening.  This was a dinner to honor the part time couples who worked with the hospitality tours this year.  It was a delicious meal and a very spiritual evening.  Everyone who attended the event shared miracles that had happened to them while on Temple Square during the year.  This is truly a place of miracles and we personally have experienced many.

This was the week in which we had many hospitality tours.  We had thirteen on Thursday night and called in everyone who could possibly help.  It was wild and crazy on that day and we had some interesting experiences and some that were hilarious.  One of our part time couples was assigned a group to take to the Lion House in a special room to eat.  Well, to make a long story short he picked up the wrong group and seated them in the Lion House.  They were thrilled and began to eat their salads.  In the meantime Taggart found the right group wandering around waiting for their host.  Taggart took them to the Lion House and met up with this other group.  The right group was a bit angry when they saw their food being eaten, but the wrong group just laughed it off.  The Lion House personnel quickly exchanged salads and silverware and the right group was seated.

After such a positive experience with Diane last week, we were a bit disappointed by our call to her this week.  Sometimes we feel she will be baptized and then she has more doubts and more questions and we are back to square one.  Taggart admitted to her that all of our questions may never be answered probably in this life but we have to live by faith.  But she is so logical that it is hard for her to acquire faith that is so necessary for her to move forward.

Frost/Curtis Senior Couples on the Square

At “Music and the Spoken Word” we said goodbye to five sisters and the Curtis’.  It has been very difficult for me to say goodbye to the Curtis’ because we have grown so close.  They are such a loving and giving couple and worked so hard to improve the mission.  We will miss them tremendously but are grateful that we could spend the majority of our mission with them.  Hopefully, we will be able to see them again.

Utah Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission

September 7, 2014

Our Beautiful Flowers on Temple Square

The days are getting cooler and the leaves are beginning to change.  The flowers are at the height of their beauty and in a short few weeks will be taken out.  The visitors to the Square are always amazed at the gardens and the care that is given to these beautiful plants.  How I wish my flowers could look like these.  Because Temple Square is sacred ground, maybe the plants are blessed.

Our Church History Building 

 

At the Church History Museum this week they had a collection of treasured documents on display.  We were able to go and see them.  Of particular interest to us was a page from the original Book of Mormon manuscript.  These pages were watered damaged and found in the basement of the Nauvoo House.  What struck me about this document was the continuous writing of the scribe without cross outs.  This is another testimony to me of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.  Also on display was Joseph Smith’s diary in his own hand, a letter written from Liberty Jail and signed by all who were imprisoned there and an original copy of the Book of Mormon from 1830.  Apparently, most of the items had never been viewed by the public before.  This was a really great experience for us.

Our new senior couple came to the mission this week.  Their names are the Bradshaw’s and interestingly when Taggart saw him he knew that he had seen him before.  They traced themselves back to Iowa where he served on the high council and Taggart was in the stake presidency.  They had lived in Cedar Rapids for eight years.  They are living below us in the Deseret Apartments and will be here for two years.  We look forward to serving with them for a short period of time and being our neighbors.

Utah Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission

August 31, 2014

We had a wonderful discussion with Diane on Thursday.  She has had so many deep questions that we wondered where was her faith.  She hangs on to doctrine that is hard for us to explain and may never understand ourselves until the afterlife.  So this week we were going to stop her in her tracks with these constant queries, but she told us she had been guided to this church and should be more believing.  She understands that she may not know all now but gaining knowledge is a lifelong process.  She still has issues but is certainly mellowing and speaks about baptism in a positive light.  It would be beyond our wildest dreams if she was baptized.  Definitely we would take a trip to New York to witness this tremendous event.  

 Below is an email we received from her on Friday which really touched us.

It's a lovely night here. Just came back from a late evening stroll. Took the time to relax and pray. My thoughts ran to you. Whatever I have become or will become is down, in very large part, to you. Your example inspires me to dig deeper and deeper. Your selflessness is divinely bestowed and I am truly blessed to have you as my guides on this overwhelming and life-changing journey which Heavenly Father has chosen for me. I love you!

The Costleys/Good Friends

We have had several friends visit the Square this week.  Our friends the Costleys came to the organ recital and then we had lunch with them.  Just a few weeks ago they left their mission in Puerto Rico.  How fun it was to see them again and our friendship remains constant over these many years.  Then on Friday our son-in-law’s mother and new husband visited us.  They were on their way home to California.

Ken, Dagmar, Mike, and Becky after "Music and the Spoken Word"

Serving on thirty-five acres can get a little claustrophobic for the sisters.  They long to visit a real home.  This week we had a zone meeting at Elder and Sister Howell’s house.  (They are our office couple.)  They are so willing to open up the door to their home so the sisters might experience a change from the routine and different scenery.  Elder Howell is a collector of everything and anything, so it was fun for them to play with his various items.

Becky and Kimm in front of the Ogden Temple

We had an opportunity this week to go to the Ogden Temple Open House with Becky.  The décor was simplistic and beautiful with dark wood and a green pallet.  The stained glass windows were amazing and complimented the whole structure.  We are excited to have this as our temple and look forward to attending regularly.